Embrace the gamble

In a 1973 study, eight professional horse-race handicappers were asked to predict the outcomes of several races based on 5, 10, 20, or 40 pieces of information about the horses.

With 5 pieces of information, the handicappers could correctly predict the winner almost 20% of the time. You’d assume that their predictions would become more accurate as more data was made available, but you’d be wrong.

With 40 pieces of information, the handicappers were just as accurate in their predictions as when they had only 5.

Did you do enough research? If you’re asking the question, you most probably have.

A chart from the study Behavioral Problems of Adhering to a Decision Policy